Most of the jobs I’ve applied for do not exist, I’m convinced.
For whatever reasons, someone’s been told to run job listings, but they’re not
actually hiring.Applying for these phantom jobs only puts me on
spam lists, to receive daily announcements of another twenty jobs that aren’t
real. Applying to any of them only buys me more spam. Every day, I un-subscribe from a few more of these junk job list emailings.
♦ ♦ ♦So far this month, I’ve applied for more than a hundred jobs so far, getting desperater and desperater, and getting grumpy about it.

Gave my flatmate Dean the raspberries this morning, and my dour mood is contaminating my movie reviews, and my blog comments. If that’s a problem, of course, please bite me.♦ ♦ ♦I’ve applied for jobs I’m qualified for, jobs I’m very qualified for, jobs I’d be perfect for, but the phone never stops not ringing.That’s new to me. Maybe I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: All my life, the ratio has been reliable: five or so applications, three or so job interviews, and then somebody hires me. These days the ratio is about 1,000 to ten to zero.A few of the jobs I’ll never get had me briefly optimistic. Office support for a homeless charity! Driving and delivering hot meals for old folks! Hell, for either job I’d cheerfully offer a $2 or $3 an hour discount. For the hot meals job, I told ’em that.And yet, my phone just sits there. Is the ringer off? It’s not, but it might as well be.♦ ♦ ♦On the bright side, I’m making progress getting this room cleaned and emptied. Summer’s a good time to be homeless. I can probably shower twice weekly at Mom’s house. ♦ ♦ ♦ Most of the work I’ve applied for is ‘entry level’, stuff anyone could do — burgers or lawn work or hotel night desk, etc. Several of the jobs that won’t have me are at retail chains, and two of my applications went to two different locations of Walgreens.Both Walgreens apps earned identical form letters from corporate headquarters, telling me, “After careful consideration of all applications received, we have decided not to move forward with your candidacy for this position.”

Walgreens was probably the job I wanted least out of the hundreds I’ve applied for, but none of the other rejections made me angry like the Walgreens rejections. So I filed a third application with them, for a third location, and attached a different résumé and cover letter. Instead of the truth about my work history in mostly office jobs, I bragged about my many years of fictional experience in retail, working for Target, Kroger, and 7-Eleven.Guess I should’ve been lying all along. Walgreens got back to me in days, and at the interview, I snowed them with some retail-lingo found on the internet, and a made-up story about how swell I handled an irate customer. Walgreens has offered me a job, contingent on the results of a background check. If they do the bare-minimum and check only to see if I have any arrests, convictions, or prison time in my past, I’m hired. If they actually check my references, I’ll still be unemployed. ♦ ♦ ♦ Meanwhile, the 1990s came calling: I’m still running my “I’ll do anything” ad, similar to the ones I nailed onto telephone poles during the Pathetic Life era, but now on a local online bulletin board.

In months of running that ad, it’s gotten me no work, and all of the very few inquiries have been either somewhat or extremely sketchy. Two men have asked me to move in, and another even used the term ‘sugar daddy’, but all three went silent when I explained that I’m a man.This morning, though, there came an inquiry exactly like 30 years ago — a guy needs some work done, and he was straightforward about it, with nothing that set off my mental alarms.He owns an Italian restaurant, and wasn’t dissuaded even when I gave him all the bad news in a single burst — ① I’m not Italian, ② haven’t worked in restaurants much and it’s been decades, ③ I can’t cook, and also ④ I’m old and fat.Despite all those negatives, he still seems interested. I kinda liked him on the phone, and he seemed to like me. He said it’s too hectic to meet during the weekend, but promised he’d call again on Monday.Even if he doesn’t call, doesn’t hire me, talking to him was worth it just for the two-minute jolt of optimism.Homelessness is still my likeliest outlook, but there’s a chance I’ll soon be washing a restaurant’s dishes, bussing tables, sweeping floors, and taking out the trash. Or maybe I’ll be saying, “Thank you for shopping at Walgreens” a thousand times daily.5/10/2024   itsdougholland.com
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